The Tapestries Unwoven
by Forrestib
Summary: A series of one-shots that take place in an AU where Blake was born human and Ruby and Yang never joined Signal. Chapter 1 is Blake/Pyrrha Tragedy/Romance. Chapter 2 is Ren and Nora Friendship.
1. Lovely Nightshade

**Lovely Nightshade**

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Author's note's:

This was a very emotional story for me to write. It's heavily inspired by very real feelings that were whizzing through my head directly following the loss of a relationship with a person I cared a great deal for. As such the characters may seem a bit OOC in some parts.

With that out of the way, the AU in which this takes place has several significant differences from the primary continuity. The most prominent difference is that the teams at Beacon were chosen differently. Blake, Pyrrha, Weiss and Cardin form one team, led by Pyrrha, and Nora, Jaune, Velvet and Sun form another, led by Velvet.

Another key difference is that Blake was born and raised in very different circumstances. She was born human to a wealthy human family and she still stays in contact with her parents to this day. She never joined The White Fang and is a perfectly law-abiding individual.

Other character's histories differ in some ways. Pyrrha, Nora and Sun were born and raised in Vale instead of across the sea. Ruby and Yang never decided to become huntresses since Qrow died before either of them were born. Ruby became a librarian and Yang is the drummer for a rock band. Ozpin vanished mysteriously many years ago so Glynda is the headmaster at Beacon.

In addition, Torchwick never rose to power, and Cinder is a particularly pleasant teacher at Beacon. As a result of this, the time our characters spent at Beacon was mostly uneventful.

If you'd be interested in reading more stories written in this universe you should PM me or write a review.

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It was graduation day at beacon. Blake looked to her teammates with pride. Every one of them had been fundamentally changed by the last four years. Weiss had mostly broken out of her shell. She had learned to overcome her prejudices and had become good friends with a rabbit-eared girl from another team. Cardin had certainly changed the most among them. He started at beacon as a bully and a brute. Now no-one could've recognized him. He too had gotten past his prejudices as well as his insecurities. Eventually he had become known as one of the kindest individuals at Beacon. They were both great friends and great friends to Blake.

Her other teammate was Pyrrha, the team leader. Pyrrha was Blake's partner and in time had become Blake's best friend and so much more. When Pyrrha had first asked Blake out on their second year Blake could hardly believe her ears. Her hearing had never been very good so she had asked for Pyrrha to repeat the question. Pyrrha had quickly fallen deeply in love with Blake and, eventually, Blake had come to care deeply for Pyrrha. But no matter how much Blake wanted to, she did not love her partner back.

Pyrrha had made it very clear that she was willing to take it as slowly as Blake was comfortable with but Blake could tell that Pyrrha wanted more. Now they were graduating and it would only make sense for them to move in together since they would both be getting their own places. The only problem was that Blake had always wanted to move to Menagerie after graduation. She wanted to help the faunus who still lived there in poverty. Pyrrha had always wanted to become a full Huntress. She wanted to stay in Vale and fight the local dust gangs.

Blake knew that Pyrrha would move to Menagerie with her and abandon her own dreams. Blake didn't want that. She wanted Pyrrha to stay in Vale and hunt gangs and be happy. She wanted Pyrrha to find someone new one day. Blake wasn't ready for the kind of commitment that would preceed Pyrrha moving countries for her. She was planning to break up with Pyrrha after the graduation ceremony.

Pyrrha loved Blake more than anything. That's why she hadn't pushed their relationship forward even though they had been together for almost 3 years and still had only reached 1st base. She was willing to do, or not do, anything for Blake. She didn't know how much her love scared Blake. She knew that Blake wanted to talk about something. But she thought Blake wanted to tell her that she loved her back.

After the graduation ceremony they met in a quiet corner of the room.

Blake blurted out the words she thought needed to be said "I think we should break up."

Pyrrha froze in shock. She stood for almost a minute just thinking. She thought about her response before giving it "if that's what you want."

Blake shook her head "it's not what I want."

Pyrrha revised her statement "then if that's what will make you happy..."

Blake interrupted "it won't make me happy. But I think it's what needs to be done."

Pyrrha was honest as she had always been with Blake "I can't say I understand, but alright."

Blake lowered her head "please understand. I can tell that this is getting more serious and I'm not sure if I'm quite ready for that yet."

Pyrrha looked directly at Blake "I'm willing to take things as slowly as you want to. My love is unconditional. I never asked for anything from you in return."

Blake nodded "I know. But now I'm moving to Menagerie. You can't follow me and I can't do long distance."

Pyrrha shed a tear "ok"

Blake tried her best to look up at Pyrrha "I know this is such a cliche but we can still try to be friends if you want." Pyrrha felt the tear drop off of her cheek. She remained silent. Blake saw an airship through the window "my ride to Menagerie is here. I need to go. I'll talk to you later, ok?"

Pyrrha spoke softly "alright, I love you, goodbye." Pyrrha silently agreed with herself that she would never contact Blake again. She was Blake's ex now and if she contacted Blake all it could do would be to cause Blake pain. She would do, or not do, anything to stop Blake from feeling pain.

Blake turned away and started to walk as she wiped away a tear. She hoped that one day Pyrrha would find someone new. But deep down she knew that she had just left a permanent scar on both of their hearts.

Pyrrha saw her teammates meeting up with the other team they had befriended. Velvet and Jaune talked with Weiss as Nora and Sun joined a group hug with Cardin. Pyrrha wouldn't tell them what had happened until tomorrow. She wouldn't want to ruin the graduation festivities.

Over the next few months Pyrrha began to recover. She stopped thinking about the breakup as much and she even started finding other people attractive again. But the scar in her heart never truly healed. Her first true love was gone forever. And she would never love anyone like that again.

They both succeeded at their dreams. Blake nearly eradicated faunus inequality and Pyrrha did the same with the dust gangs of Vale. They both eventually fell in love with other people and married them. They got happy endings, just not the happiest one they could've gotten together.


	2. Soulless Success

**Soulless Success**

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Author's notes:

Here's what Ren has been up to in this universe (Someone asked, so here it is.) He was born and raised in Vale. He never met Nora and as such has already graduated Beacon a year before Nora even gets there. Without his perfect best friend he's become reclusive and socially jaded. He protects the world as a renowned hunter but he does not participate in it. He does not live. He only allows others to do so.

Meanwhile Nora is starting her first year at Beacon. She's still Nora, but she's lonely. She has lots of people who she calls friends but she has no-one who really understands her. She has many people to talk to but she has no-one who will truly listen. Without her perfect best friend she will no doubt lose hope of ever finding real friendship before her time at beacon is done.

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3 years after he had graduated Beacon Lie Ren was already living the dream. He was a renowned hunter who had already saved many lives. He had killed an Ursa that had found its way inside an apartment complex and he had participated in an infiltration operation that had recently taken down one of the more powerful dust gangs for good. He had more money than he knew what to do with and all the free time he could want. He didn't spend any of it. He was always on the job.

The only exception to this being when he got hungry. Then he would go to a lovely little Atlasian restaurant across the street from a laser tag arena. He had never gone inside the arena but he had seen Beacon students exiting the arena many times. One day he was drinking his tea when two students his age came barging into the establishment. They were soaked in sweat and hopped up on adrenaline. The boy with the monkey tail started walking over to Ren's table.

Wait, what? Why was he waving at Ren? The monkey boy sat down at the table and started drinking Ren's untouched water glass as the other boy more timidly approached the table before sitting. The two students lowered their heads and the human boy hid behind a wine menu. Ren simply stared at the two as they made themselves appear at home. A few seconds later the door flew open and two women stormed in searching intently. Ren could only assume they were searching for the two boys who were now sitting next to him.

After the girls had left the monkey boy introduced himself "Phew! they're finally gone! thanks a million Pinkeye. If you hadn't helped us out just then we would've been goners for sure. My name's Sun. My buddy here is Jaune. Those lovely ladies were our opposition in the arena across the street. They decided second place wasn't good enough and chased us all the way here. Guess we'll have to face the fire eventually though. I bet you know how that goes, am I right?"

Ren looked at the smirk on the boy's face. He was speechless for a few moments as this was the first time in over a year that he had interacted with anyone beyond paying for goods and services. He looked between the two intruders as he searched for the words. He shook away the flabbergasted expression and asked "I'm sorry, what were your names again?"

Sun leaned back a bit "Right, sorry about that. I can be a bit overwhelming sometimes. You can call me Sun. Fluttershy over there is Jaune. Do you have a name or do I keep calling you Pinkeye?"

Ren held out his hand "Lie Ren, nice to meet you."

Sun shook his hand vigorously with his grin growing by the second "Lie? that's an odd name. I like Pinkeye better." The boy stood and gestured for Jaune to follow "Well we should probably head back before our team starts to worry. Nice meeting you, Pinkeye!"

Ren winced at the nickname as he waved his new friends goodbye "Nice meeting you too."

The next week Ren was, once again, sipping his tea at his favorite restaurant. After a few minutes a familiar bang resounded from the front door as a certain monkey boy made his entrance very known "Hey! Pinkeye! I got some people I thought you might want to meet!" Ren saw Jaune enter before the two women who had been chasing the pair earlier. Sun came over and slid another table over to make room for the extra people. He waved in each person as he introduced them "I believe you know Jaune. The lovely ladies you may recognize as our predators from the other night. Yellow here is Yang. Pinky over there is Nora. Ladies, this is Lie. He likes sipping tea in the dark and long walks on the beach."

Ren glared at Sun before turning to the girls who he had just been introduced to "Yang, Nora, you can call me Ren. Nice to meet you."

Nora's face lit up "Your eyes are my favorite color! I love pink! Not that I'm saying i love you or anything. We just met and that would be weird. Speaking of which, it's a pleasure to meet you! Sun told us AAaall about you, well not all about you. He only told us everything he knows. But then again how could he tell us anything he doesn't already know? I suppose if he was being possessed by some kind of demon when he said it, or if he was under mind control! Is mind control possible? I guess there was that one time that guy told me to hold still and then I didn't move a muscle for 5 hours. That was a lot of fun. Those birds were so confused when the nest they had been building on my head just vanished! I did build them a new one and leave it behind though because if I hadn't then all their work would have been for nothing! That would have made me a Huuge meanie! right?"

Ren smiled at the girl. She seemed to say absolutely everything that came into her head. Complete honesty in its truest form, he liked that. He answered her question with his own "Well I think that depends on how long you were there. If they had just started then I don't think it's a big deal. They can just build another."

Nora thought for a moment "Yeah, it was only a few pieces of straw. I don't think it's a big deal."

The group stood in shock. None of them were sure what had just happened between these seemingly entirely opposite individuals.

Over the next few weeks Ren grew accustomed to the unexpected visits from the group of students. He quickly grew a fondness for Nora. She was so refreshingly real in a world full of deception. Eventually he accepted an invitation to the weekly laser tag games at the Lazor Blaztor Ultra arena across the street. He was teamed with Nora.

Sun quickly grew frustrated with failure against the duo and exited the arena before the match was over. Yang and Jaune gave a good fight. At the end of the day they walked away with second place and enjoyed a mustard pizza among friends. Ren had never had friends before.

Over the next few months Ren and Nora continued to grow closer as friends. She loved to talk and he loved to listen. He would mostly remain silent but when he had something to say he could rest assured that it would be heard.

Ren met the rest of the group too. He met Cardin, Velvet, Weiss, Blake and Pyrrha. After a few years he started dating Weiss but even then Nora remained the most important person in his life. Nora was the kind of friend that he knew he could depend on. She was his best friend. And it would stay that way forever, as it did.

When Ren died 85 years after he had graduated from beacon his only remaining regret was that he was going to leave Nora alone in this world. He didn't regret leaving Weiss, then his wife. Weiss would have the kids. Weiss would have her company to take care of. Nora would be left with nothing.

Nora knew she would need her other friends now that Ren was gone. She surrounded herself with all her favorite people and demanded of herself that she have a good time. It worked for the most part. She eventually stopped having to tell herself when to have a good time.

By the time she died she had made some good memories without him. But none compared to the memories she had of her best times with her best friend. Nothing could compare. After all, what could possibly compare to true friendship?


End file.
